Playground gets hands-on help

Bridgman residents pitch in to make project a reality.

Bridgman residents pitch in to make project a reality.

March 25, 2006|KATE SHERIDAN Tribune Correspondent

BRIDGMAN -- Lisa Kiewel believes that if it takes a whole village to raise a child, then it surely takes a whole community to build a children's playground. The Bridgman Board of Education trustee is helping pilot the two-phased, two-year effort to transform the 30-year-old children's playground at Bridgman Elementary School into something on which the entire community can put their mark. In the face of shrinking school budgets and tight financial resources, Bridgman's unusual school-city-students-PTO partnership is what's making the new playground a reality this year, Kiewel said. Students and PTO volunteers not only raised money to pay for new equipment, they've also agreed to join many other parents and citizens in grabbing shovels and rakes to help spread the new, softer playground surface that will be installed once the old sand is removed. To save even more, the school district will act as its own general contractor and oversee site excavation, restoration and equipment removal and disposal. The city of Bridgman gave the project a big boost by volunteering to transport the new playground surface using city workers and backhoes, Kiewel said. The city also will demolish and remove old cement sidewalks at the playground, and help with hydrofeeding the new yard when it's completed, she noted. When the final costs were tallied, the volunteer efforts thus far have trimmed more than $65,500 off the initial cost estimates. "We asked for ownership of this playground by the community, because it really is a community play area," she said after shepherding the second phase's much-reduced $52,175 price tag through a successful school board vote recently. "This isn't an area where just our school children play, but it's also well-used by everyone in the community." The playground is at the site of the old Bridgman High School and hasn't had a face-lift in 30 years, said School Superintendent Kevin Ivers. Drainage issues prompted the project discussion a few years ago, as the old playground area slopes toward the elementary school, sometimes causing storm water to collect at the school's base and seep into its foundation. Widespread community use after school, on weekends and during summer and other vacations made the playground project a perfect candidate for funding through the Recreational Millage Fund, a 10-year millage passed by voters two years ago primarily to help maintain and repair the district's 30-year-old community swimming pool. That fund generates about $330,000 a year, most of it earmarked for operations of and improvements to the Olympic-size pool at Bridgman High School. The school's general operating fund had put an average of $160,000 a year into pool operations before the millage. The millage income has already provided hundreds of thousands of dollars for pool improvements, said Ivers. That savings from the general fund, coupled with ongoing revenue enhancement and extensive budget-cutting on spending not affecting classroom activities, has helped the district slash $1.1 million -- about 12 percent -- from its budget during the past four years, he said. "And we're still adding to the curriculum, still upgrading equipment, still attracting new students," Ivers noted. "Planning ahead when money started getting tight has made an enormous difference." The school board voted to use the Rec Fund to finish the playground project only after trustees determined the ongoing pool improvements wouldn't be deterred or delayed as a result, he added. A new filtration system for the pool is the "next big project" that is currently in planning, he said.